Sweden Updates Dictionary to Include ‘Gender-Neutral’ Pronoun for a He-She

STOCKHOLM, Sweden, The editors of Sweden’s official dictionary have added the gender-neutral “hen” to the Swedish language.

The official dictionary of the Swedish language, The SAOL, is adding a gender-neutral pronoun to its latest edition, it’s since been used in court rulings, media texts and books, along with other official texts, The Guardianreported.

After years of debate and deliberation, the editor-in-chief of the Swedish Academy’s official dictionary, SAOL, has added the word “hen” to its new edition because he or sh- (oh wait, should that be “s/he”, or “they…?”) recognises the need for a gender-neutral pronoun.

In Swedish, “han” means he and “hon” means she. Now “hen” can be used when the gender is unknown, the hen is neither a han nor a hon (or is in transition), or the writer thinks that gender is irrelevant.

“It’s quite simple,” Sven-Goran Malmgren, the (male, it turns out) editor, said yesterday. “It is a word which is in use and without a doubt fills a function.”

The pronoun, “hen,” (pronounced like a female chicken), will join “han” (he) and “hon” (she) as the official gender pronouns of the Swedish language.“Hen” can be used to refer to a transgender person, a group of people of mixed genders, a person who chooses not to identify with a gender, or when discussing someone whose gender is irrelevant.“Hen” was coined in the ’60s in protest of the use of the male pronoun to describe any group or population that doesn’t exclusively contain females. This is the practice in many European languages.

Englished proposed Sodomite Pronouns

The word didn’t become widely used until Sweden’s growing transgender community adopted it in the early 2000s. It soon caught on with the rest of the population.

“You hear it all the time on TV shows, radio, and magazines, and you don’t even think about it anymore,” Astrid Öhman, a Swedish resident and recent college graduate, told BuzzFeed News. “I was confused by it when I first heard it a few years ago, but now it’s just another word in our dictionary – though with an important purpose, of course.”

As well as adding “hen,” the dictionary will also remove or add alternatives to words considered racist or otherwise offensive.

The Localreported that the dictionary will remove words like “negerboll” (negro ball), a Swedish sweet, and next to words like “neger,” meaning negro, “zigenare,” meaning gypsy, and “lapp,” which The Local defined as “a derogatory term for an indigenous Sami person from Lappland,” the dictionary will recommend alternative words such as “svart,” meaning black, and “rom,” meaning Roma.

The SAOL dictionary is updated every 10 years. The newest edition will contain 13,000 new words and offensive word alternatives. It will be on sale on April 15.

PROPHECY:

“In the last days … men shall be … lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God.” 2 Timothy 3:1-4.

“Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed”- Luke 17:28-30 (KJV).

“lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away” 2 Timothy 3:1-5 (KJV).